Mexico’s midterm elections held on Sunday, July 5, had a little something for everybody’s inner cynic. As the leading parties, PRI and PAN threw political punches accusing one another of corruption, fraud, and aiding drug cartels, a new organization gathered less than a month before election rallying citizens to show their disgust by annulling their votes.

In the end, although citizen annulment did count for slightly more than 6% of the national votes, the PRI, or Institutional Revolutionary Party, claimed victory by a landslide over President Calderon’s conservative National Action Party, PAN.

The PRI beat the PAN by nearly 9 percentage points — 36.6% to 28% — in Sunday’s congressional race, according to the government’s preliminary tally. It led in gubernatorial races in two conservative states — San Luis Potosi and Queretaro — that everyone assumed were solidly in the PAN fold.-LA TIMES

During the campaign, the PAN sought to keep the spotlight off the country’s economic troubles by emphasizing Calderon’s 2 1/2 -year-old crackdown on internal corruption and drug traffickers.

In the end, turn out for Sunday’s election was slim. Voters, now weary of the increased blood and violence caused by Calderon’s iron fisted war against drugs sought reassurance and comfort in the loving arms of PRI, which reinvented itself as a modern party that had shed a corrupt and authoritarian past.

The President is popular, and his conservative National Action Party tried to keep the campaign focused on the government’s social programs and its attack on organized crime. But it was clearly not enough in a year when the economy is expected to contract by as much as 8 percent.

Although a majority of Mexicans still support Calderon’s battle against drug cartels, the vote suggests a weariness with the increasing levels of violence the fight has spawned. Nearly 800 people were killed in drug-related violence in June, a record.

Overall, results appeared to reflect public disenchantment with the country’s political direction. More than half of the 78 million registered voters stayed home. One in 20 ballots were deemed invalid, a sign that a protest campaign had succeeded in persuading many unhappy voters to deface their ballots. In Mexico City, the rate of null votes was more than one in 10.

What is now uncertain is not only what the PRI will do with their new win, but how it will affect Mexico as a nation struggling to get back on it’s feet. What is certain is the two parties must find a way. Mexico simply could not withstand another internal fracture, especially of such magnitude.

Mexico’s leaders face daunting problems, including declining oil production, persistent crime and a recession that has hammered tax receipts and is expected to shrink the economy by more than 5% this year.- LA TIMES

Citizens must also put past differences aside and create a united front in supporting not a simple political party, but the road to progress and the return of our nation.